Title
Modelling internal logistics systems through ontologies.
Abstract
Proposal of a standard taxonomy and classification of internal logistics resources (warehousing in particular) that is expressed into object-oriented modelling.The object-oriented modelling is ready to be included into OWL ontology models, in particular it is proposed as extension to support the logistics field representation of the Manufacturing Systems Ontology (MSO).The paper suggests the role of ontologies and semantic representation as supporting elements of the modularity and flexibility of internal logistics systems.The concepts of Storage and Transporters are analysed, classified and hierarchically represented also in relation to other relevant concepts.The paper reports also an industrial example to show how the proposed modelling can be declined in reality. Industry is facing an era characterised by unpredictable market changes and by a turbulent competitive environment. The key to compete in such a context is to achieve high degrees of responsiveness by means of high flexibility and rapid reconfiguration capabilities. The deployment of modular solutions seems to be part of the answer to face these challenges. Semantic modelling and ontologies may represent the needed knowledge representation to support flexibility and modularity of production systems, when designing a new system or when reconfiguring an existing one. Although numerous ontologies for production systems have been developed in the past years, they mainly focus on discrete manufacturing, while logistics aspects, such as those related to internal logistics and warehousing, have not received the same attention. The paper aims at offering a representation of logistics aspects, reflecting what has become a de-facto standard terminology in industry and among researchers in the field. Such representation is to be used as an extension to the already-existing production systems ontologies that are more focused on manufacturing processes. The paper presents the structure of the hierarchical relations within the examined internal logistics elements, namely Storage and Transporters, structuring them in a series of classes and sub-classes, suggesting also the relationships and the attributes to be considered to complete the modelling. Finally, the paper proposes an industrial example with a miniload system to show how such a modelling of internal logistics elements could be instanced in the real world.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1016/j.compind.2017.03.004
Computers in Industry
Keywords
Field
DocType
Internal logistics,Warehousing,Ontology,Semantic representation,Domain modelling
Ontology (information science),Ontology,Integrated logistics support,Knowledge representation and reasoning,Systems engineering,Knowledge management,Engineering,Structuring,Discrete manufacturing,Modularity,Web Ontology Language
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
88
C
0166-3615
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
7
0.75
42
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Elisa Negri1444.81
Sara Perotti2141.56
Luca Fumagalli3617.29
Gino Marchet471.09
Marco Garetti5728.91